The subject matter disclosed herein relates to an infant care apparatus. In particular, the present invention relates to a system and method of controlling the infant care apparatus.
When working inside the incubator infant compartment, it is often challenging for the caregiver to react to the incubator controller prompts or alarms. To do so, the caregiver's hands must leave the infant compartment space to either interact with the controller directly or, in some cases, use a hands free alarm silence mechanism. Depending on the nature of the caregiver's interaction with the patient inside the compartment, this may interfere with sterility requirements, slow the caregiver from acting as quickly as desired, or interrupt a procedure.
Currently all alarms, independent of their nature, cause or origin, are silenced by the same caregiver action: engaging the same “alarm silence” button. The current systems do not provide a confirmation that the caregiver understands the alarm nature, cause or origin before the caregiver silences it.
Therefore, a system comprising a user interface within the infant compartment is desired. It would allow the caregiver to react to incubator controller prompts and to silence incubator or patient alarms without removing his or her hands from the infant compartment and thereby quickly controlling the incubator while preserving sterility. Additionally, such a system could provide a method for confirming the caregiver understands the nature of the alarm, thereby potentially increasing the quality of care given to the infant.
The above-mentioned shortcomings, disadvantages and problems are addressed herein which will be understood by reading and understanding the following specification.